Friday, March 20, 2009

Published by Tracie on Mar 17, 2009Category: Animal WelfareRegion: United KingdomTarget: Government

At present, the 'Animal Welfare Act' for the UK covers:

* For a suitable environment (place to live).* For a suitable diet.* To exhibit normal behaviour patterns.* To be housed with, or apart from, other animals (if applicable)* To be protected from pain, injury, suffering and disease

* It states as a owner/keeper you are responsible for the above and minimal age to keep an animal is now 16 .

Yet in 2007 over 2,000 people were convicted in 2007, yet only only 54 were sent to prison.And in 2008 complaints of abuse had risen by 12% in 2007 to 137,245.(source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4428985.ece)There was a 42% rise of people sent to prison for animal abuse in 2008, but we think this needs to rise to at least an 80% rise.The RSPCA believe this dog was thrown 70ft to its death from a balcony, after being badly injured in a fight. A witness has reported seeing a gang of approximately 10 - 15 youths throwing the Staffordshire Bull Terrier off the 5th floor of Sidmouth House in Lympstone Gardens, Peckham, at around 9.30pm last Friday night. It is believed that the gang had carried the dog to the block of flats after it had sustained earlier facial injuries, which the RSPCA suspects were probably inflicted during a dogfight.

The witness to the act said that the group of youths, which included a teenage girl, had carried the dog through the flats and the visibly injured animal waswhimpering with pain. The teenage gang then headed to the 5th floor and walked along the communal balcony, where they threw the dog over the edge.The Bull Terrier fell approximately 70 feet to the concrete floor below, where the gang then picked up the dead animal and threw it into a communal bin.

RSPCA inspector Rebecca London said:

"This is horrible cruelty. I am absolutely disgusted that this poor dog was whimpering and in distress and yet this group thought it was fine to just throw it over the balcony to get rid of it".

If you have any information on the youths the RSPCA urge you to contact them in confidence on 03001234 999. These people need to be stopped and the law needs to change.

A minimal prison term needs to be put in place. At present the maximum term you can serve for animal cruelty is 51 weeks, we think this should be the minimal term you can serve. The maximum should depend on the circumstances reflecting the case. We in the UK are meant to be a nation of animals lovers, and are encouraged to treat our pets as "one of the family", yet the laws are far too relax and need to be made tougher and pet shops & breeders need to be policed more about who they sell animals too.

Animals cannot fight for their rights.

They need us to fight for them.

Please support efforts to improve animal welfare legislature.

Please sign this petition.

Please forward and x-post this important petition!

The Petition:

We the undersigned would like a government review on the animal welfare act and for tougher terms to be imposed on those who inflict cruelty on animals.

We also would like pet shops, breeders and anyone (including online private advertising) to be policed more and for them to record who they are selling animals to.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Discover Life - An interactive and extensive database for exploring nature.

"Our mission is to assemble and share knowledge in order to improve education, health, agriculture, economic development, and conservation throughout the world.

Discover Life provides free on-line tools to identify species, share ways to teach and study nature's wonders, report findings, build maps, process images, and contribute to and learn from a growing encyclopedia of life that now has 1,287,014 species pages.

The Polistes Foundation and our scientific partners plan to add high-quality identification guides, maps, images, and text to these by 2012. Please help us provide everyone with the information we need to reduce disease, increase food production, stop destructive species, protect endangered ones, and enjoy rather than struggle with nature. --John Pickering"

Lonesome George

Every now and then George closes his eyes for a few centuries the stars stop for the occasion and the sun goes out, his night lit only by dream...

"Hello, big boy," she says, shell new and lustrous, green as the deep sea; and her eyes deep as the dark gems that glow deep where it roots...

George, lifting his nose skyward still seeing her behind his closed eyes moves forwardslow as lava oozing from the bottom of the sea

His scaled feet arch like trees first planted then pulled up from their roots...

"I'm coming," he says.

Written by, Steve Campbell

"Lonesome George" is the name given by biologists to the last surviving male Giant Galapagos Tortoise. There are no surviving females.

The entire Giant Galapagos Tortoise species was destroyed directly by humans. The tortoise's shells were used to make tourist trinkets. The shell is part of the tortoise's body (like turtles). Without their shell, they die much like a human having their skin removed (I imagine, equally as painful).

The animal was usually still alive when it's 'soft' body was cruelly cut out from it's shell. In countries like China, and the Island of Bali, this brutal and unethical practice of live tortoise/turtle slaughter continues.

George is approximately 90 years old. In 2008, great efforts were made to help George produce offspring by fertilizing eggs of a 'close' relative species. Sadly, the experiment failed.

George is the rarest known creature in the world and... the loneliest.